White cat is on the prowl again, stepping through the jungle of the backyard, territorializing. Cautious, and a little baggy in the brisket, I had thought he was a she. When I finally met the back neighbors, they told me he regularly beats up our next-door neighbor’s black cat, Simba.

Beloved Simba. Muscled, friendly as a fourth grader. Whereas the white cat remains aloof, seemingly timid, watchful.

Last night at the amateur film festival, we met our acquaintance, Rich. Zen Rich. Serene Rich. I’d met him at a bookstore reciting Eliot. Next at a campsite at a poetry festival, on to Pound.

He was just parking his motorcycle. I wouldn’t have thought he was the type, but then, I’m not sure what type he should have been. Toyota Tercel, Dodge Ram, BMW – nothing seems to fit.

In the fourth film there he was, leathered-up, evil goatee, raging at one of the peep show girls, complicating the plot. After, he told me he was also the abusive boyfriend in the pickup waling on the star. The hostility seemed foreign to me, yet available.

White cat stalks a squirrel. Simba, nowhere to be seen.

Categories: Poems
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In the wall of your fortress
you open a narrow breach and fire
arrow after arrow at me.

Each one enters, bites. I feel
the hot fury of your hatred and hurt.
I see you on the height, raging.

When you are exhausted I let go
the bird to fly through the wound
you have opened in your defenses.

Categories: Poems
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So I had taken some stuff down to the basement and saw the rack with jeans and shorts and socks drying on it, still a little damp and it getting on in the evening so I scooped the lighter stuff into a basket to dry and left the jeans there, thinking maybe this was one of those Bill Lavender or Sarah Freligh moments of simplicity that could be turned into poetry or language at least. Damp socks and jeans. Well, it was worth a shot, and the thing I care about is good language, as I said earlier today to Jake, who for all his anarchistic ideas surprised me by saying he loved Godot because of its good language, and I thought, “Yeah, what else is there to like about it?” but said, “Most kids hated that play,” with a little chuckle, which I suppose suggested the dark thread running through me.

At the Bill Lavender reading I challenged a bunch of them to come to my house Saturday night for a party, Sonja and the others I didn’t know, Allan, whom I had at least met before, and Greg, who looked familiar but whom I couldn’t place, and Eileen, whom I insulted with a comment that was meant to be a joke but I’m pretty sure remained an insult. Sonja had introduced me to her and said something like, she’s not a poet or a novelist or anything, and I said something like, well, as long as she’s not stupid or boring it’s okay. Even now I think it was a funny thing to say, but it didn’t really go over well. People that don’t know me don’t get my sense of humor all the time, how dry it is. Additionally, I can be kind of transparent, emotionally, and people can see the anger lurking just below the surface, and think it’s intended for them. No, I would tell them, if I could, it’s just pretty much there all the time.

I just want to clear up what I said about Godot, though there’s the danger that it might get a lot more complicated than I want. I didn’t mean to say there wasn’t more to like about it, but after trying to figure out what it’s about for 20 years, you come to the conclusion that it’s really, really obvious what it’s about, or else it’s really, really obscure, but either way, any of the interpretations you might arrive at based on either conclusion isn’t as interesting as the language itself, the repartee that paints itself into a corner, the borrowed eloquence that shows how truly beautiful simplicity is, and the way simplicity is pantsed by nihilism.

See, I told you. Anyway, I was glad Jake liked it for that reason, and rattled off a lot of movies he should watch, and forgot to mention a raft of others. None of them anarchist or political, not because I don’t believe in those things, but I’ve just never seen a good movie made by or about them. Maybe with the exception of Algiers.

The buzzer on the dryer just went off. So whatever happened to Bill Lavender? Someday I’ll get back into his book about Katrina. The bastards. Not the ones who thought up the hurricane (those whimsical gods of Olympus), but the ones who thought it was a good idea to dig canals up the estuaries of Louisiana, the ones who sold real estate below sea level, who shipped slaves from Nova Scotia, who devised an alphabet to more easily control the sale of cattle, bovine or other.

My Dinner with Andre, The Princess Bride, Wings of Desire, Fanny and Alexander, Seventh Seal, Lars and the Real Girl, Where the Road Bends (Gypsy Caravan), City of God, Delicatessen, 8 ½, Volver.

Categories: Essays & Rants
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